On Writing PERFECT ALL THE TIME

It’s ironic that as I am sitting here, writing this, that my book, about an unwanted teenage pregnancy, coincides with the ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade.  Perfect All the Time was not written to debate anything – I wrote it to work out my feelings about women’s relationships.

In my life, I’ve had several best friends along the way. My best, best friend has been in my corner for the last 32 years. We met when I was dating her husband’s best friend – who now happens to be my husband.  But even with her in my life, I’ve always sought out other friends – friends to go to lunch with, friends to commiserate about kids with, friends to share some of my most difficult times and to rejoice in their happy times.  Sound familiar?

In Perfect All the Time, Janet and Elyse are best friends, even though they are so vastly different. Elyse is a divorced, Jewish, very successful realtor in town, with a seemingly perfect daughter, Maddie, a senior in high school on the precipice of getting into some prestigious colleges. Then she discovers she is pregnant by her secret boyfriend, Chip, also a senior, who happens to be Janet’s son.

Janet, a devout Catholic, was a Labor and Delivery nurse who once loved her job, but for the last four years, she’s sat at home. Her husband’s invention brought in millions of dollars so they decided she didn’t need to work anymore. But she’s found that being at home is not all that it was cracked up to be. She longs for purpose in her life.

That purpose, as far as she can tell, is to raise Chip and Maddie’s baby while they go off to the prestigious colleges they planned on attending.  But Elyse wants the kids to “own” their mistake and live at home and go to New Jersey’s flagship school, Rutgers.  The women’s friendship tears at the threads, leaving them not speaking, each living alone in their big houses with no one to help them. They always had each other and now they don’t have anyone.

I didn’t know what would happen in this book as I wrote it. As I do with all of my fiction, I let the characters lead me along the way.  They sometimes surprise me with decisions I wouldn’t make, with mistakes that will cost them everything…and I just let the manuscript go wherever it wants.  While I’m writing, it’s like I’m looking through a movie camera, and I’m just recording what I see. It’s a very strange, out of body type of experience, and after nine novels, I’m still not really comfortable with it. But it’s how my brain works.

My books usually start with a question in my head – in this one it was if two best friends could come together to help their teenage children make the best decision about a pregnancy and then whether they can figure out who will raise the baby.  In other books, I’ve tackled women with medical issues, like a social worker with MS, two sisters trying to take care of their autistic brother, and whether an egg donor should be used.  

I also read a lot of women’s fiction. I enjoy seeing how friends, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, and other strong women work out tremendously difficult problems – sometimes with help from others, sometimes on their own. As women, I feel we are the stronger sex, and that we have power and control more often than we think – especially when we feel so out of control in our own lives.

As to the logistics, each day that I write, I get settled in my office (our tiny guest room) around nine a.m., after I’ve walked on the treadmill and had some breakfast. I set myself a word count – usually around 2000 words and write until I hit that last word.  By then, I’m grateful to be done, and to move on with my day.  The scenario changes when I’m getting a book ready for publication as I am now. Right now big things on my schedule include getting the cover right – I use a cover design artist – proofreading the pages – it’s amazing how much my editor and I still miss, no matter how careful, we are! – and marketing the book. I like to show my readers in advance what they’ll be getting.  And I always hope they’ll like it and want more.

I write for my readers, no one else.  I feel so grateful to my readers – to those who are just trying out one of my books to those who read each of my books when they come out.  I love hearing from readers –whether they want to complain about the book or whether they love it. Whether they want to do a book club with their friends about it or whether they just want to talk to me about it. Sometimes when we’re talking, I feel like we’re talking about real people.  But they’re just in my head.  As soon as I move on to the next book, it’s that new set of characters who come in and stay for a while.

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Find out more about Judy and her work on her website

https://www.judymollenwalters.com/

PERFECT ALL THE TIME, Judy Walters

Longtime best friends Elyse and Janet are in awe of their focused and accomplished children. Maddie is Ivy League-bound and Chip, a superb athlete, is headed to play football for a top-tier school in the South. On the cusp of their adult lives, what comes next are not just college acceptance letters, but two pink lines.

As a single mother and successful career woman, Elyse has struggled to do everything right. How could her perfect daughter be pregnant? And by her best friend’s son? Janet doesn’t understand why Elyse refuses to entertain her ideas to help their children. As the two drift apart and the pregnancy advances, can they find their way back to each other for their children’s sake and preserve their deep-rooted bond?

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